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Rabbi Lyon's Blog - 10_24_2014

10/23/2014 01:00 PM
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From the Desk of Rabbi David Lyon
October 24, 2014

Ebola. It’s enough to make you go screaming
from the room. But, when you’re done screaming and running, it’s really about
all you need to do about it. The facts speak for themselves; though it’s a
mysterious and deadly disease, it will kill far fewer people than will the flu
this year. The numbers and the reactions are disproportionate. Have you gone
for your flu vaccine yet?

To
me, the essence of our fear isn’t merely the disease; it’s the unpreparedness
of the authorities we entrust with matters of public health. The lack of
protocols and supplies at hospitals leaves us wondering about the organizations
whose primary job is public health and safety. The CDC responded but failed to
provide the public the level of confidence it felt was necessary under the
threat of Ebola. They can do better.

This
isn’t the first time we’ve faced an emerging disease in a first-world nation
and believed we were all doomed. There have been influenzas, polio, and
HIV-AIDS, to name a few. When I was an elementary student, Reyes Syndrome
killed one of my sixth-grade classmates. Everyone was on alert until a
reasonable explanation was found.

We
fear the things we don’t understand. This year, Ebola tops the list. So far,
the good news is that is that we’ve been spared the televangelists screeching about
Ebola being God’s wrath upon the heathens. Unless I’ve been watching the wrong
television stations, I haven’t heard it quite the way we did when HIV first
emerged on the scene. Then you would have thought that Satan, himself, had
visited the victims of HIV and there would be no saving their souls.

Twenty-five
years ago, Beth Israel hosted an AIDS Care Team. We proudly created a care
network that visited and comforted patients living with HIV-AIDS. These
patients were often abandoned by family and friends because they were gay, and
then isolated because they had HIV-AIDS. While we attended funerals for many of
the patients we cared for, it was only after months of reminding them that they
were human beings who lived and would later die with dignity.

More
than Ebola, which I don’t fear, is my concern about parents who don’t immunize
their children. To me, this is the greatest health risk we face as a nation and
ultimately as a world. From what data do parents draw to conclude that the risk
they believe they’re preventing in their own children should be the same risk
they foist upon other children whose parents do wish to immunize them?
Following decades of childhood disease and death due to air-borne illnesses,
mumps, smallpox, influenza, and polio, and extraordinary discoveries that led
to their near eradication, what public outcry is there about avoiding
preventable diseases? Are you a parent of an elementary student where
unvaccinated children are allowed to attend the same school, and are you sure? Such
private interest cannot come before the public’s health.

In
the right places, fear serves a great purpose. Either fear saves lives because
we destroy life-threatening sources or we run from them. But, misplaced fear
destroys the public good and offends life-affirming choices. Ebola destroys
life, but it’s preventable and treatable. Enough medicine can be produced to
prevent and treat it effectively. On the contrary, unimmunized children, for
which there are vaccines, threaten their own lives and the lives of others they
come into contact with, often unknowingly. Which is a greater threat? The
answer seems clear to me.

Fear
is personal. Be afraid of anything you wish, but a psychologist once observed
that we aren’t running because we’re afraid; rather, we’re afraid because we’re
running. If that’s the case, let’s assume greater responsibility for our
reactions to events by learning the facts and realities. Then we might walk in
the direction of greater understanding and empathy. It’s exactly what we did
twenty years ago with HIV-AIDS; we can do the same, today.